Mexican Striker Becomes More Popular Than Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi

A Mexican striker garnered more searches online than world-famous soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

Raúl Jiménez is a 28-year-old forward who plays for English club Wolverhampton Wanderers and the Mexico national team. He has been playing the best season of his career since he arrived in the Premier League. Jiménez led Wolverhampton to victory over Tottenham 3-2 this weekend by scoring the winning goal towards the end of the match. His performance was so delightful that he became the most searched soccer player this past weekend.In fact, Jiménez gained more searches than other superstars like Ronaldo and Messi.

Jiménez’s remarkable numbers came from Transfermarkt's Monday edition. It also revealed that the Mexican’s current market value has reached 42 million euros ($46,868,453).

The top five most searched players besides Jiménez were Daniel Sturridge, who evidently gained popularity due to his involvement in illegal gambling, Mariano Díaz, Vinicius Júnior, who recently broke one of Messi’s records in Real Madrid’s victory over Barcelona and the Portuguese superstar Ronaldo, AS reported.

It didn’t take Jiménez long to catch the people’s attention. Having played 86 games with Wolverhampton, Jiménez already has a tally of 39 goals under his name. He has also dished out 18 assists in all competitions. His game-winning play against Tottenham on Sunday helped the Wolves increase their chances of qualifying for next season's Champions League.

On the 73^rd minute, Jiménez sentenced the game to give Wolverhampton the win over Jose Mourinho's team. Wolves move up a position in the Premier League, leapfrogging Spurs to go sixth level on 42 points with Manchester United who are sitting on the fifth spot.

Ultimately, Jiménez has scored against most of the top teams in the division, including Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal.

Despite being surpassed by Jiménez in most searched soccer player last weekend, Ronaldo remains the most popular athlete in the world. After conquering Instagram, “CR7” dominates Twitter and now has the world’s most valuable Twitter posts any athlete endorser.

The 35-year-old soccer superstar who plays for Italian club Juventus generates an equivalent advertising value of $868,604 per tweet. Boasting a nearly 82 million followers on Twitter, this goes to show that Ronaldo is still way ahead of his peers in soccer even on social media. In fact, his Twitter posts value average is roughly $200,000 more valuable than his nearest competitor.

Spanish soccer star Andres Iniesta ranked second on Opendorse’s list with an estimated value per Twitter post of $590,825. Iniesta plays for Japanese soccer club Vissel Kobe. Fellow footballer Neymar of Brazil ranked third at $478,138.